Editorial: GOP foolishly defends gun sellers' greed

Mar. 11, 2013

One of the most profound distinctions making itself clear in the wake of President Obama's push for new gun legislation is the intellectual schism between gun owners and gun sellers.

For the former, the Second Amendment is about protecting a sacred right. For the latter, it's about sales. And money. And what's becoming obvious is that those two imperatives sometimes take precedence over nearly everything else.

Republican lawmakers, who fashion themselves as advocates of gun owners but are also very beholden to the lobby controlled by gun sellers, will have to decide which allegiance to honor -- and so far, they aren't doing so well.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed, by an 11-7 vote, a measure that would increase penalties for so-called straw purchasers, people who buy weapons for other people who can't buy them legally.

This, of course, is one of the main conduits for the transfer of legally bought guns to illegal hands. A 2000 Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms study found that 46% of all illegal gun trafficking investigations involve straw purchases, accounting for some 26,000 illegally trafficked weapons from 1996-1998.

Cracking down on this activity would have an effect on legal gun owners, but it would hurt gun sellers the most.

And yet, all but one Republican on the Senate Judiciary committee voted against the bill, which would make it a federal crime to straw purchase a firearm for someone who can't legally own it. Violators would face up to 15 years in prison.

Kudos to Iowa's Charles Grassley, the lone GOP Senator to vote with Democrats for the measure. But what's the deal with everyone else?

Isn't this the kind of crack-down on illegal gun ownership that staunch defenders of the Second Amendment say is necessary? Isn't it quite a separate issue from ideas like an assault weapons bans or even expanding background checks to private gun sales, which some gun advocates say (albeit unconvincingly) could be a first step to widespread gun confiscation?

Sad to say, the likely reason for the GOP balking here is its fealty to the gun lobby.

To be sure, most gun sellers are conscientious about who buys their wares. They do the background checks. They deny sales to people who can't legally purchase.

But straw purchasers defy the system by helping to conceal what's clearly an illegal purchase. And in some of instances, they find complicity in gun sellers who know what's going on, but won't stand up for the law, or what's right.

No policy-maker should defend that activity. And it's hard to see how any lawmaker could stand in the way of efforts to hold straw purchasers more accountable, or choke off their contribution to the proliferation of illegal guns.

The GOP's on the wrong side of this issue, and of common sense and safety.